Alfred And The Dragon
by woodbyne
Summary: On a quest to find hidden treasure, Alfred seems to have bitten off more than he can chew, and made a friend while he was at it. Prompt from GreyMoth (who has all the best AUs). Possibly going to be one of the weirdest things I will ever post. Dragon!Canada Adventurer!Alfred
1. Imagine Dragons

"'Turn left at the forked tree'," Alfred read aloud for what had to have been the thirtieth time, and sighed, "That's every other fucking tree in this forest!" But the one in front of him looked like it could be a landmark. It was huge and dead and looked like it had been the victim of a forest fire in the recent past.

But, thinking nothing of it, Alfred shrugged, turned left and dutifully counted out the sixty paces that the map instructed him to. So engrossed was he in measuring his footsteps that the man didn't notice as the grass died away around him, leaving spaced, blackened rocks. He didn't notice the lack of vegetation, of animal life, or even the piles of armour, soot-black and scattered around like the playthings of a carelessly spoilt child.

"'Go boldly into the cave, for none have yet returned'," Alfred read, snorted and looked up at the cave, silently judging the rocky crag. Shrugging, he made a face, "That cave is average," he said blithely, walking inside.

It wasn't dark, which was surprising. It was lit by flaming brackets that lined the smoky walls, glinting off abandoned weapons and flaming gold coins half buried in the dust of the cave floor.

But gold wasn't the only thing in the dirt, there was something else there, littering the floor. Jewel-bright and glittering in the flickering light. Picking one up, Alfred wiped the dirt away with his fingers and turned it in the light. It was reddish about the size of a golden drachma, but only as thick as his nail. Bringing it right up to his nose, Alfred scrutinised the fan-shaped piece of armour. It had tiny rings, semi-circular rings on it, like the trunk of a tree, or the scales of a fis-

A scale.

Oh.

Oh, _shit_.

Something rustled behind him and the scale fell from Alfred's numb fingers, landing with a puff of dust at his feet. Whatever was behind him chirruped and clicked, pacing around, brushing it's scaled hide against his back. Something large and heavy cuffed the back of his head and he doubled over.

The rest of his body frozen with terror, his eyes darted around the room. It was in front of him. Part reptilian, part humanoid, and Alfred had to force himself to keep from whimpering in abject fear. It seemed to slither as it moved closer. It looked so human, that Alfred was half tempted not to be scared of it. But then he remembered that humans didn't have scales, or wings, or tails or claws. And they certainly didn't have teeth that sharp or many.

The dragon looked curious as it approached him, pushing him over and climbing on top of him, trilling softly. Alfred couldn't move. His body refused to. He wanted to wriggle, and kick and go down fighting. He wanted to stab something into the creature's soft, unscaled underbelly. But he had no weapons, and he could barely blink as the creature cooed and chirruped, running claws through his blond hair with a wondering expression on its face. And the the talons were poking carefully around his eyes, it's face so close to his that panicked sapphire blue was barely an inch from slit-pupiled indigo.

The dragon pulled back and to Alfred's abject horror, it was _smiling_. It's lips were pulled back and it's too many teeth were gleaming in the firelight. Like a contented cat, it settled it'self on his chest, head pillowed by folded arms.

"Tuurr," it purred, "Teeru~ Tuureh~" Alfred gulped. Those fluting, whistling trills sounded almost like it was traying to-

"Treasure!" the dragon said happily.

~====o)0(o====~

Alfred had never given all that much thought to how he would die. Possibilities that had come to mind had been variations on 'gloriously, in battle' and 'peacefully, while asleep.' 'Eaten by a dragon' had never even made the cut, but now that there was something large and scaled curled up on his chest, it had somehow wormed its way up to the top of the list.

Strangely enough, being sat on wasn't unduly uncomfortable. Sure, he had the feeling that he was steadily being pushed through the dirt floor of the cave because the dragon was, frankly, weighty, and he did feel that after this dust bath he may never be truly clean again, but all this paled in comparison to the undeniable fact that he was not dead yet.

In fact, he was quite remarkably alive, and fairly at home with his surroundings. The dragon on his chest – and the rest of him, it was about the size of a horse – appeared to be drifting off. Which meant that it wasn't eating Alfred, which was good. On the other hand, it meant that it wasn't getting off either, which was not so great. The blond man could only guess that he'd been on the floor for about three hours now. If not that long, then long enough that he didn't tense up every time the creature above him refolded its wings, an activity that in the confines of the cave sounded very much like rock fall.

"Treasure," the dragon purred again, shivering happily. It had been doing this periodically ever since it had sat on him, and if Alfred didn't have just a smidgeon more sense, he'd tell the thing to shut up. Yes, it had declared him treasure, and yes, it was being a good dragon and sitting on its treasure. Because that's what dragons _did_.

But it wasn't just that that made him keep silent and listen to the even breathing of the creature on his chest. The dragon's language appeared to be made up of clicks, whistles and growls, put together to form words. So treasure (growl-whistle-growl) sounded a little like music. Turr-ee-shurrr.

"Treasure," it wasn't until the dragon perked up, looking straight at him, that Alfred realised it had been he who had spoken. Oh.

"Treasure!" it said again happily, shifting so that it could prod Alfred's cheek with its nose. Its slit-pupils gave the impression of its gaze being more than slightly unfocused and it was very disconcerting. But just because it didn't appear to be looking straight didn't mean that it was any less intelligent, because for a mythological creature, it had an alarmingly good grasp of Common, "Treasure talk!"

"My name is Alfred, not Treasure," the words just kind of fell out of his mouth before he could stop them, as often happened to him. Alfred wasn't overtly fond of this trait because it had gotten him into more than one sticky situation. Such as this one.

The dragon sat back on its haunches and wrinkled its nose as though it was trying not to sneeze. "Auh," it croaked, "Auhrlferrd," it sounded like it was trying to cough up a hairball. Scale-ball? Again it tried, rolling one growl into another, "Ahlferd. Alferd. Alfred!"

The human just stared. There was a dragon, and not only was it sitting on him, but it was so excited by the fact that it could say his name that it was going to squish his lungs out through his mouth.

"Alfred," it chirped again, beaming in satisfaction, "Alfred!"

"Yeah, buddy, that's my name," he wheezed, hoping that the horse-sized lizard-person hybrid would stop bouncing on his ribcage, "What's yours?" Alfred wasn't sure what possessed him to start up a conversation with the dragon, but it seemed to work, because the creature settled back down, curled up like a cat on top of him.

Shuffling its wings again, it let out a croaking growl and a fluting whistle, turning its face away, but keeping one eye trained on Alfred's face, watching him carefully to see if he would try and imitate the sound, it feigned mild disinterest. The human could have laughed, but thought better of it.

"Matthew," he said plainly, no trills or whistles, because that was what it had sounded like, and he wasn't about to embarrass himself in front of a lizard.

The dragon turned back to him, head tilted at a curious angle, it made the same sound, the trill rising questioningly at the end.

"Matthew," Alfred repeated, "Sorry buddy, my vocal chords are not cut out for that kind of crazy."

The newly dubbed Matthew snorted and twin jets of flame flickered from his nostrils. Getting up, but not off, it twirled around for a minute, kneading at Alfred's stomach with scaled hands before settling down and offering him a view of heavily scaled, spine-ridged back.

"Sleep, _Treasure_," the dragon instructed, spiny tail flicking back and forth like an irritated cat.

_Great_, the human thought, _Of all the dragons out there, I get sat on by the passive-aggressive one_.


	2. Treasure

The day was warm and oddly lethargic, but that wasn't hard to achieve not really. Not when the person you were currently sharing a cave with was, in all technicality a dragon. Dragons were warm creatures, Alfred had discovered. Well, not s much discovered but had inflicted upon him. Literally. Having a dragon sit on you was not as much fun as could be assumed. Matthew - as he had chosen to call his new found and not entirely voluntary friend - liked company. The dragon would curl up beside him and playfully headbutt his arm until Alfred curled it around his shoulders. Matthew was not an easy person to hug; his wings were cumbersome and his scales uncomfortable against his skin, but in the sake of camaraderie it could be dealt with. After all, it's not like Matthew was going to let him leave the cave any time soon.

He had tried, oh, had he tried, but there was no room for lea-way with Matthew. The second he had allowed Alfred to get up and move around, the human had made a bee-line for the exit, one the dragon had promptly taken offense to. The lizard may have been smaller the human when on all fours, but with his wings spread wide and threatening, he blocked the whole exit and that alone made Alfred back down. Instead of the sweet air of freedom, he was resigned to smoky, heavy cave-air and an overly-affectionate dragon. Matthew was more like a cat, in many aspects, and Alfred didn't hate him. He was just doing what dragons did. They hoarded treasure. Flattering though it was to be thought of as such, Alfred was a little bit bemused as to why Matthew had classed him with the goblets and coins that littered the cave floor. There was a moderately large pile towards the back of the cave - To be fair, Matthew was only a small dragon-, where the light barely reached, and the gold and jewels glistened in the wan, flickering torchlight. It was beautiful. Alfred had never seen so many riches in all his life before. And Matthew draped across them, languid as any cat on the laundry, stretch and flexing, his odd, whistling chirrup marking his happiness.

Alfred didn't begrudge the dragon his right to keep a little loot tucked away in his den, but he didn't see why he had to be party to it, kept like a pet on a leash. It really wasn't fair at all. But at least Matthew was nice. Whenever Alfred woke, there was some kind of food waiting for him, and though Matthew wasn't much of a conversationalist, he was at least an attentive listener.

The would-be adventurer even suspected that the dragon liked to listen to him talk.

Just to pass the time, he would find himself talking about the things he wanted to do, the mountains he wanted to climb and the damsels that he wanted to rescue - all the things that could be happening outside the cave at that very moment spilled from Alfred's wistful lips and into the smokey air around them.

Matthew would settle down beside him on the dusty cave floor, wings folded neatly across his back and head resting placidly on Alfred's thigh as the other spoke, his slit-pupiled eyes wide with wonder. The boy was curious to know if Matthew understood what was being said to him at all, or if the dragon simply liked the sounds that cam from his mouth.

As the time wore on and the number of days that Alfred had spent in the half-light of the cave blurred together until it could have been months and he wouldn't have known, he started to talk less about adventures that he could have been having and more about the life he had left behind.

"I'm the son of a farrier," he told the dragon, his fingers stroking mindlessly through blond hair and making the creature purr softly. It was an encouraging sound, like the sound of a contented cat by the fire, "My father was a farrier and his father was a farrier and it just goes back and back and back. My family has always been farriers. I know horseshoes forwards and backwards, but that's not what I wanted, y'know? I wanted more than just shoeing horses day in and out, because let's face it, no one calls a farrier for anything else in these parts. I just wanted a little excitement. And I suppose I got it, but even if you are exciting, you're kind of a homebody. For a dragon," Alfred glanced down at the dragon in his lap and smiled. Matthew looked so peaceful. And so trusting. Alfred could have picked up any one of two dozen discarded swords that adorned the cave floor and run the dragon through. But he couldn't bring himself to, not when Matthew used his thigh as a pillow and let his eyelids droop; a sleepy child at story time.

"Treasure~" Matthew murmured softly. It seemed to be easier for him to say than 'Alfred', and the human wasn't about to complain. He'd gotten used to it by now. The dragon blinked sleepily, "Miss family?" he asked quietly.

"I suppose. They probably think I'm dead by now. Dunno how long I've been gone." his heartstrings twanged painfully at the thought of his mother grieving for him without any kind of proof.

"Treasure want to go home?" Matthew's purring voice was softer still and Alfred looked long and hard at the creature who held him captive in the cave. He looked about as sad as Alfred felt.

"I don't want to go back and be a farrier," he said slowly, weighing his words, "But I would like them to know that I'm not rotting in a ditch somewhere."

Matthew frowned, seemingly more awake than he had been. The dragon got up and stretched, leaving Alfred's thigh a colder and his chest inexplicably heavy.

"Treasure can go," Matthew sighed, tail not swinging the way it usually did when he walked, but rather dragging limply in the dust, leading a thick trail into the gloom of his treasure trove.

* * *

"Alfred!" His mother had clung to his filthy shirt, still thick with cave-dust and the reptilian scent of dragon that he had gotten so used to over the past however long. "Alfred, you're home!" She wept and he felt terrible for leaving in the first place. Her thin fingers twisted into his shirt and she held him close. Absently, he petted her hair, the way he had done Matthew's as the dragon dozed beside him, and the ache in his chest grew all the more pronounced.

He missed the dragon, he thought, dazedly.

* * *

"Matthew," Alfred called, a rucksack over his shoulder, the fingertips of one hand grazing the rough stone wall so that he didn't lose his way. The torches that lined the wall weren't lit. "Matthew?" he asked the darkness again, softer this time, but still brazenly unafraid. There was a snuffling in the darkness ahead. The familiar sound of a dragon stirring in his sleep. Shaking his head and chuckling as loudly as he dared, Alfred dropped the bag from his shoulder, one hand still touching the wall as he made his way right to the back, where Matthew's pile of treasure lay. Feeling blindly, he knelt, gold clinking as it shifted under his knees. Matthew, at a guess, was draped over the top of the hoard, the way he usually was. Alfred lay back, feeling soft hair touch his face and dragon-breath caress his cheek.

It was good to be home again.


End file.
